


The Day That Magic Died

by RayBell310



Category: Final Fantasy VI
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:40:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24752551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RayBell310/pseuds/RayBell310
Summary: Sometimes... the happy ending doesn't stay happy.
Kudos: 8





	The Day That Magic Died

_“Why do people insist on creating things that will inevitably be destroyed? Why do people cling to life, knowing that they must someday die? ...Knowing that none of it will have meant anything once they do?”_

_Why._

_Why._

Why. 

The painter dabbed the tip of her brush against the canvas in smooth and even strokes. Red on white, green on gold. She glanced through the cracks of the boarded up windows. More out of habit than anything else. The scenery beyond had little resemblance to the image she produced from memory. 

On that day, thirty years ago, life returned to the world. That is to say, the crops grew and the water ran clear. The people thrived, but then so did the monsters. And so did other things. A malingering blight settled upon the world like the last words of the mad man. 

On that day, thirty years ago, magic died… not with a explosion or a sparkling bang, but a whisper and susurration of crumbling dust. The embroidered pouch that held her magicite was filled with ashes. 

On that day, thirty years ago, when life returned to the world, something within mankind faded away. 

There were some who would never know, never understand the loss. But the painter felt it, and so did her grandfather. When the elation of victory waned…

He sat down in his rocking chair. And that was the end of magic. The end of him.

It was ten years, or fifteen, she forgot which. When the mother’s love, too, could not make-up for the loss. The funeral was beautiful and sombre, like sending off a Goddess rather than the mourning of the eternally departed.

By the twentieth, the General too gave up the ghost. And her beloved followed not long after.  
  
There were others of course, it became the norm. But they were strangers to the painter, a statistic rather than a tragedy.

The painter paused mid-daub to take a sip of water. By her feet, her rheumy-eyed companion raised a hopeful ear. Not her father’s companion, no. But raised from the same stock, with the same temperament. 

One day, it would be her turn as well. Though she was amazed it was turning out to be later rather than sooner. 

“Did you know?” She muttered to herself as she added the last touches of white to the pasty cheek. 

The mad man stared back at her, picture for picture the very vision of the living but without the life she could have once imbued in the canvas. It offered no reply, only the demented smile she herself had painted on. 

They had destroyed life, so that the world might live. But for how long?


End file.
